A Test of Leadership Skills

How does one know they have leadership skills?

I oversee a weekly homeschool club at our local library. My job usually entails taking down tables before the meetings, setting out the sign-in sheet, organizing the clean up and the table set up when club is over, taking out the trash to the dumpster, and turning in the attendance count to the librarian.

But today I didn't feel all that great, so I arranged for a friend's dad to pick up my kids and take them to club.

But there was still the problem of who would do my job. So I sent out a request on our club's Yahoo!Group early this morning asking for someone to volunteer to be "me" for day…but I didn't get any takers.

So I asked my 11-year-old son to do it, to take care of all those responsibilities he's seen me take care of each week. Not only that, but since we were having a Valentine's party, there were more responsibilities than normal: setting up tables for the food and the Valentine's boxes as well as setting out place cards in alphabetical order for all the boxes.

And all those things were now Jaden's responsibility.

But I was confident he could handle it. I've told Jaden for a long time that he has natural leadership skills (even though he doesn't believe me) and this was the perfect opportunity to show him what I meant.

And he came through with flying colors!

After the meeting today I received this email from one of the moms in our group.

Had to let you know how responsible Jaden was today about overseeing the clean-up effort. At about 3, he walks over to Jerah and says something along the lines of "Okay, Jerah, it's time to start wrapping things up. Do you want to help me get everyone going?" You can be proud!

Oh, how my mommy heart swelled with joy when I read that; and as he read the words, Jaden's face lit up with what looked like pride in a job well done.

Now I can hardly wait for the next opportunity for him to hone those leadership skills.

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Something else that struck me in this post, is that no one would volunteer to help you out for the meeting. our homeschool group is really struggling, there are a few core people that keep trying to set stuff up, but no one else will do anything. They all expect other people to run everything and no will help out. The 3 of us that do are getting really burned out over this. It is unfortunate that people won't share in the responsibility for things like this. Sorry to vent on you, but I see this problem happening more and more frequently, not just with homeschooling either.

Fantastic job, Jaden (and Mom and Dad for teaching him to do such a good job)! One thing that really bugs me is people saying a child can't do X because he's not old enough. If people would only give children the responsibility and teach them how to be responsible, they could do so much more than we currently think they can.

P.E.

Bike riding & weight exercises

About the Author

Joy is the wife of Jeff and mom to three more J's — Jaden, Jerah, and Joely.

She and her husband have been homeschooling their children since 2005, when their children were 3, 6, and 8. Joy works from home as a graphic designer and spends what little free time she has with her nose buried in a good book.

Joy's motto for parenting, homeschooling, and even business is “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” And that's what FiveJs.com is all about — teaching our children to "fish."